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Reliability & Risk Assessment Laboratory (R2A lab)

The scope of the R2A laboratory is to improve the current state of the art
and develop new innovative technologies for the reliability and risk assessment of civil infrastructure systems.
Examples of such systems are highway transportation networks, railroad networks, water distribution systems,
power distribution grids, and nuclear power plants.
We are interested in the performance of these systems as a whole rather than on the single vulnerable component,
because failure of a component is a disaster whereas failure of an entire system can potentially generate a catastrophe
A catastrophe brings immense loss of assets, loss of life, misfortune for many years and/or over a large area after the initial events.

The research field includes: the inputs, the outputs, and the probabilistic risk assessment itself.
Inputs include fragility analysis of the vulnerable components and probabilistic hazard analysis of the different hazards.
Tsunami, flood, earthquake, and hurricane are examples of hazards taken into consideration.
The study of the outputs includes benefit/cost analysis, evaluation of the consequences, and risk mitigation through strengthening of the system.

R2A laboratory is part of the Disaster and Risk Management track of the School of Urban and Environmental Engineering (UEE) at
Ulsan Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST) and we work together with the other tracks in a multi-disciplinary environment
to achieve the School research goals.

« We had already taken leave of him
and were already struggling to advance
along that road as far as we were able,
when I could feel the mountain tremble like
a falling thing; at which a chill seized me
as cold grips one who goes to meet his death.
Delos had surely not been buffeted
so hard before Latona planted there
the nest in which to bear the sky's two eyes.
(Purg. XX, 124-132)
Dante Alighieri - Italian Poet - AD 1265-1321

Marco Torbol Ph.D.

Associate Professor
School of Urban & Environmental Engineering
Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST)